Untouchable
by redcherryamber
Summary: Tseng and Reno are too professional to act on such feelings.


**Tseng and Reno are professionals. **

* * *

><p><strong>Untouchable<strong>

When they first bring Reno in – this brash, hard-eyed youth, who kicks and curses and whose smile is still mocking even when insincere with fear, and who would rather be shot point blank than show them that he's never been this scared – Tseng thinks, _really_?

When Tseng watches how Reno _takes_ – how he takes to the life, to the job, to the air – he thinks _maybe_.

And when Tseng observes that Reno kills with all the compunction of a bird of prey and that, even the first time, his finger doesn't falter on the trigger, he thinks _yes_.

But when he finds that he is arrested by a flicker of flame red in his peripheral vision and feels his heartbeat quickening, Tseng thinks _stop_.

x

Reno is quicker. The first time he meets his immediate superior (though Reno believes himself inferior to no one and nothing) he thinks – _him_? This quiet, still, sober-suited man? And Wutain, to boot, in wartime, when surely he's hated here in Midgar. But maybe hate slides off him, because there's something untouchable about his impregnable professionalism. Reno shifts, uneasy as a flame in a draft, and knows that the still-water depths of this man could quench him. He licks dry lips and tries to swallow, but his throat is dry, too.

When he was very young and still went to school – before school, or Reno, had enough - he remembers hearing the tale of a man who committed a crime against the gods. For his sins he was forced to spend eternity waist-deep in a pool of cool water, which would retreat from his hands or his mouth so that he could never drink.

Reno thinks of this myth when he sees Tseng working – ordering lives and deaths – commanding tortures with a calmly spoken word - relentlessly professional and so, eternally out of reach.

x

Tseng thinks of a tale he heard in Wutai – when he was very young and still lived in Wutai – of a vermillion bird, whose name is Suzaku: flame-bright and thought-swift and merciless as wildfire. Tseng thinks of this myth when he sees Reno working – the way he deals death like a raptor striking, the way he instinctively understands lightning. When Tseng thinks of Reno, he calls him Suzaku.

x

At night there's Reno – fox-red, insidious – slipping through bars bent by sleep, under steel netting the night has left torn, over razor wire, blunted by dreaming. He dodges bullets and blades; all the weapons in Tseng's armoury do nothing to keep him at bay.

Tseng wakes hard – but his life is denial. He breaths, and mends fences, and checks through his weapons: his guns and his knives, and his hands, which obey him. No release but the relief of retaining control.

x

Reno's dreams have no defences, and at night there's Tseng – keeper of secrets – who smiles as he never does during daylight, and says _let me show you what my hands can do…_ And Reno sees no reason why not, because electricity takes the path of least resistance, and why not? Why not – when no one will ever know?

x

Tseng is always professional – has always been – was…

Reno is professional, despite what others may think, so he keeps his tone light as he says to his partner in crime and atonement, "Too bad the Director's not around."

"Elena too," Rude admonishes.

Tseng _and_ Elena. But – Tseng!

"Hope they're alive…"

Hope _he's_ alive, because if not…

Is an unquenchable thirst worse if you know that somewhere there's water, or if you know that there is no water? Torture is torture, but some kinds break you faster.

x

Torture is torture, but some kinds break you faster. In the darkness of the cave, Tseng imagines water - the way it flows and retreats and finds ways – but he can't escape the pain or these red lines in his flesh. Tseng thinks of red lines tattooed on pale skin, and he smiles, and his ghost-silver torturers don't understand.

There's a time when he has to decide – let go, or hold on? He pictures a flame-red bird and lifts a hand towards it. The bird hovers, just out of reach, but it stays, and he holds on to its glowing image that burns brighter than pain.

x

On a street in Edge they have their reunion. It's a silent acknowledgement – an instant - a breath – and then there is work to be done – speed and battle, before their pulses even have time to slow.

Low over a deep lake, a firebird wheels. The tip of one wing skims the surface for an instant, scattering water-droplets, trailing sparks.


End file.
